November 10, 2012 8:33 pm

A 42-year-old Tacoma man allegedly shot at another driver on Interstate 5 Saturday, then led five officers from three jurisdictions on a high-speed chase into King County.

It all started about 2:15 p.m., when a 34-year old man driving northbound on I-5 near the Tacoma Dome called 911 to report a road rage incident.

“He initially said a guy in another vehicle had showed a gun to him while driving,” said Washington State Trooper Cliff Pratt. “But that very quickly escalated.”

While on the phone with an emergency dispatcher, the caller said the other driver had shot out his back window.

“Then, he said that he thought he’d been struck in the back with a bullet,” Pratt said.

In spite of a dispatcher’s advice against it, the victim got behind the suspect’s gray Ford Escape and followed it off an exit near Fife, Pratt said. The two men confronted each other just off the freeway, when the alleged shooter again pulled out his gun. The man drove off just as two Fife police cars arrived at the scene, Pratt said.

The two Fife officers gave chase and were quickly joined by a state trooper. Sometime after the man drove across the county line, two King Co. Sheriff’s deputies picked up the pursuit, and the Fife officers dropped out, Pratt said.

The chase ended after the trooper performed a PIT maneuver on the fleeing vehicle, spinning it out at Weyerhaeuser Way South and South 349th Street in Federal Way. The deputies then helped the trooper box the suspect’s car in with their own vehicles, Pratt said.

“He pretty much gave up at that point,” Pratt said.

The man was arrested for investigation of felony eluding police, multiple counts related to the alleged shooting and suspicion of driving under the influence, Pratt said. Detectives were still trying to figure out what sparked the road rage incident late Saturday, Pratt added.

In the end, the victim had been mistaken that he’d been shot.

“I can understand how with all that was going on, he may have thought that,” Pratt said. “But he had no injuries whatsoever.”

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